The Deepening
914 Words
Ten years after the Deep Ones knelt in the snow, Elara dreamed of silver light again.
She was standing on a beach of black sand, staring at a sea that glowed like molten metal. The waves didn't crash. They whispered. And beneath the whisper, a voice she had hoped never to hear again.
Did you think you had ended me?
Elara's hand went to her sword. It wasn't there.
I am not the void. I am what was before the void. What will be after.
"Who are you?"
I am the Deepening. The hunger beneath hunger. The void's void.
"I don't understand."
You will.
The silver sea rose.
Elara woke screaming.
---
James reached her room before her feet touched the floor.
He was old now—seventy-three, grey-haired, his body bent by decades of fighting. But his eyes were still sharp.
"The Deepening," Elara said. "It's waking."
"What's the Deepening?"
"The void's void. The hunger beneath hunger. It was there before the void. It will be there after."
James's blood went cold.
"How do we stop it?"
"I don't know. The void doesn't know. No one knows."
---
Taylor stood in the doorway.
She was seventy-one, her auburn hair white, her face lined. But her hand was still steady on her sword.
"The Deep Ones," she said. "They'll know."
Elara pulled on her boots.
"Then we ask them."
---
The Deep Ones had built a settlement outside Ember's Rest.
Stone houses. Gardens. A shrine to the changed void. Nix was their elder now—her silver skin faded to grey, her eyes wise.
The Deepening, Nix said when Elara told her. We hoped it would never wake.
"You knew about it?"
We knew. We did not speak of it. Fear is not a strategy.
"What is the Deepening?"
The void was born from hunger. But before the void, there was emptiness. True emptiness. Not hunger. Not longing. Just... absence. The Deepening is that absence. It has been sleeping for eons. Now it stirs.
"Why now?"
Because the void changed. Because hunger became hope. The Deepening feels threatened. It wants to consume everything before hope can spread.
"How do we stop it?"
Nix was silent.
Then: We do not know.
---
The void spoke to Elara that night.
The Deepening is my parent. My creator. My enemy.
"Can you fight it?"
I can try. But it is stronger than me. Older. More patient.
"Then we fight together."
Together.
---
The first sign of the Deepening came a week later.
The river turned black. Fish floated to the surface, their eyes silver. The crops in the eastern fields wilted overnight.
The townspeople gathered in the square, afraid.
Elara stood before them.
"The Deepening is waking. It's older than the void. Stronger. But we've faced worse."
"When?" someone shouted.
"When my father faced the Ember. When my mother faced the Inquisition. When I faced the void. We've always found a way."
"And if we don't this time?"
"Then we keep trying. That's what survivors do."
---
James stood with Elara on the wall.
"The Deepening," he said. "It's not like the other hungers."
"No."
"It doesn't want to consume. It wants to erase."
"Yes."
"How do you fight erasure?"
Elara looked at the black river.
"You remember. You hold on. You refuse to be forgotten."
---
The void inside her stirred.
I was born from the Deepening. I consumed part of it to become what I am. But I did not consume all of it. The rest slept. Now it wakes.
"Can you consume the rest?"
I can try. But it may consume me instead.
"Then we don't try. We find another way."
There is no other way.
"There's always another way. We just haven't found it yet."
---
Nix came to Elara with an old book.
The pages were silver, the symbols ancient—older than the void, older than the Deep Ones, older than the gods.
This is the Book of the Deepening, Nix said. It was written before the void existed. By whom, we do not know.
"What does it say?"
That the Deepening can be sealed. Not destroyed. Sealed. With a sacrifice.
"What kind of sacrifice?"
Nix looked at her.
A willing vessel. Someone to carry the Deepening's emptiness. Someone to sleep with it. Forever.
---
Elara stared at the book.
"Like the void?"
Similar. But the void wanted hunger. The Deepening wants absence. The vessel would not just carry emptiness. They would become emptiness.
"No."
It is the only way.
"There's always another way."
There is not.
---
James found Elara sitting on the porch, staring at the stars.
"The Deepening," he said. "Nix told me about the sacrifice."
"You can't stop me."
"I'm not going to try. I'm going to ask you one question."
"What?"
"Are you sure?"
Elara was silent for a long moment.
"No. But I'm going to do it anyway."
---
Taylor stood in the doorway.
"You're not going alone."
"Mom—"
"I've spent my whole life watching the people I love sacrifice themselves. Your father. Sarai. You. I'm not watching you walk into emptiness by yourself."
"Then come with me."
"I will."
---
The void spoke to Elara.
Your mother is brave.
"She's stubborn."
Same thing.
"No. Stubborn is refusing to give up. Brave is being scared and doing it anyway."
What is the difference?
"Stubborn is in the bones. Brave is in the heart."
Then I am learning to be brave.
"Yes. You are."
- Writer
